Comics about mathematics, science, and the student life.

Legibility

The professor tells the students that they will be using the symbol "Xi" for a quantity, even though literally any other symbol could be used.

“Professor, why do we use this symbol? It’s so difficult to write.”

“Oh, you’ll get used to it after writing it a thousand times!”

No Distractions

In the first panel, the student decides to read some papers outside with no distractions. In the second panel, they begin reading only to find that they need access some other papers (but the student doesn't have Wi-Fi.

It feels so strange to think that you used to go to a library to search for these papers instead of having easy(-ish) access online.

Foundations

A professor leads a group of students to a glass case in which the axioms of mathematics are held. The professor wants them to see the axioms at least once in their lives.

“Do we need to know this for the test, Professor?”

“Nah, I barely remember them!”

Experiment Public Relations

In the first panel, the researcher walks to his computer to check the calculations for the 30th time. In the second panel, the researcher discusses the experiment with a friend, telling them how amazing the whole experiment is and how much fun he's having. This is the PR version.

“There weren’t any difficult aspects?”

“Nope, everything was amazing!”

Excited

A professor presents a problem in class, and talks so fast that all of their words jumble together.

This might sound like a rare problem, but it happens more than you might think. In particular, I see it when professors start rattling off long theorems that they know by heart.

Obscure

A researcher tries to find a citation for an obscure paper on a search engine and can't find any results.

“My field is so niche that even the search engines have no idea what I’m typing in!”

Thermodynamic Relations

Step one: buy alphabet soup, both in Latin and Greek format. Step two: roll a multi-sided die which encodes various mathematical operations. Combine as necessary to find a thermodynamic relation.

“I should be able to turn this into some kind of machine learning algorithm.”

Sets

Two students stand in a messy office. The friend can't believe there's such a mess, but the other student says there's only one item: the set of items to clean up.

“I really shouldn’t have given you that book on set theory…”

Process

A training schedule for a runner is shown, with the run required for each day. At the end, a race is marked. This is the difference between the important part (the training) and the results (the race). The same is true if you replace "race" by "grades".

Changing your perspective from one of “getting good grades” to one of “understanding concepts deeply” is probably the best thing you can do for your education.

Recall

A professor stands at the board and asks students to recall a previous theorem. The truth is that this is often done on faith, since students don't remember the result.

“I’m sure you all remember how to prove this result.”